


sing, caged bird

by ghostrunner



Category: Dune - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 07:37:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1771006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostrunner/pseuds/ghostrunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>trapped, obsession</p>
            </blockquote>





	sing, caged bird

Irulan’s wedding to Paul ‘Muad’Dib’ Atreides was a grand affair. Representatives from every major house, and every desert tribe. A dress so heavy with ornament that it scratched the stone floors of the palace. Had she not been trained since childhood she could not have moved in it. 

Paul, the new emperor of Dune and of the universe, brushed aside her veil of strung diamonds and kissed her carefully. Through the Fremen ceremony his unearthly eyes had never wavered from his concubine’s face, but now he raised Irulan’s hand in his and presented her to the crowd of thousands as his wife. 

Empty pageantry. Like the rest of her life. 

\--

She sits at every council meeting, but Paul and Alia make arbitrary, ironclad decrees and ignore all other voices. 

Her throne is at Paul’s side, but all eyes see only the glory of Muad’Dib, and all ears hear only Alia’s strident preaching. She floats through the imperial court like a ghost. Maybe that will be her legacy; the Ghost Empress, wife of the great Muad’Dib. 

Irulan begins to write another book.

The Lady Jessica is unfailingly polite to her, but distant, suspicious. Chani prefers to pretend that Irulan does not exist. 

Paul is distant and strange, now. Burdened with rule, with his destiny, with the jihad that will never end, he grows even more taciturn and abrupt. When he comes to Irulan, which he does infrequently and without warning, he seems almost resigned, like he’s bowing to the inevitable future. 

She worries for him. As she worries for herself.

\--

Paul is gentle with her, as it is not in his nature to be cruel without necessity, but she misses the moody, sharp tongued boy he was once. The man he has become does not even see her. He touches her with the same thoughtless affection he would show a pet. When he kisses her she fights back tears and struggles to remain still though her hands itch to pull him close. 

She lets herself feel as he makes love to her. Traces the muscles of his back and shoulders as he moves above her. He has never bothered to learn what pleases her and so she has learned to take what she can from these brief moments where he is only hers.

She winds her legs around his hips and digs her nails into his arms as if she could keep him with her just by holding on. But she knows, even as he shakes and gasps and hides his face against her hair, even as she trembles in the grip of her own climax, her eyes fixed on him, she knows that his thoughts are not of her. That his heart belongs to another. 

The worst of Irulan’s many torments is that she loves him still.


End file.
